Free The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine by Krissy Kneen

a bunch of people. It is just for me and Amalie.’
    ‘What, only one friend?’
    I nod and point down into my lap where my penis is still just a little tingly. ‘I
felt the orgone energy, Dad. I felt it when I was talking to Amalie.’
    He nods, sagely. He knows all about orgone. He learned from Dr Reich. He reaches
across and for a moment I think he is about to pat my groin to feel the swelling
of my penis, but instead he pops the glove box and a spill of red paper and black
curling ribbons falls out into my lap.
    ‘Your mother would be so proud of you.’
    ‘What’s this?’ We don’t have money like the other kids. I am here on scholarship.
Birthdays are a time for cake and lasagne, but never gifts. It has been a rule in
our house since Mum died.
    ‘An artefact,’ he tells me. ‘The changing of the guard.’
    I am ripping the paper off too roughly, but I can’t control my excitement. It has
been a great day, the best day, and when I see the leather cover exposed through
a tear in the paper, the letters WR pressed into the soft skin of the notebook, I
feel like all the air has been punched out of my chest. My fingers are trembling
and I force myself to slow down. WR. Wilhelm Reich.
    An artefact indeed.
    ‘I thought they burned all Dr Reich’s books.’
    ‘I stole this when I was your age. Perhaps I shouldn’t be proud of that, but I am.
All the other notebooks ended up in that pyre. I was there, watching the burning
books, the orgone accumulators, the orgone shooters, the cloudbusters, all the equipment
that Dr Reich used to gather the sexual energy. All his notes and his research…well,
you can imagine the flames, Nick!’
    I am imagining the flames. Bright blue, the colour of orgone, crackling with phosphorescence.
I wrestle the bow off the book and press my hands against the cover. I can almost
feel the energy throbbing against the soft leather.
    I open the book and run my fingers over the paper. The indecipherable scrawl. The
pen that Reich held in his thick fingers. An artefact indeed. I feel like Moses has
just come down from the mountain and presented to me the tablets from God’s hands.
This is better, though. This is the original power, the one true thing connecting
us all. The origins of orgone energy, the source of sexual health. I know my eyes
are damp when I look up to my father.
    ‘You have come of age, son.’ My father’s voice sounds strained. He is as emotional
as I am. He holds out a key and presses it in my hand.
    ‘The key to…? The cellar door?’
    The one room that I am not allowed to open, the mystery of my whole childhood. I’m
overwhelmed. I can feel the tears spill over my lids and track a wet line down my
cheeks.
    ‘You are thirteen, Nicholson. A magic number. You have reached full sexual maturity.
You are ready to test your power.’
    I close the book and press it to my heart. The key is clutched so tightly in my fist
that it will leave an imprint on my skin when I finally place it on the desk beside
my bed. I lurch forward and hug my father. He smells like pipe tobacco and aftershave,
soap and sunlight. I breathe him in and whisper into his chest, ‘This is the best
day of all my life, Dad.’
    He hugs me back so hard that my ribs hurt. ‘Remember this day, Nicholson. Today is
the beginning of your adult life. Happy birthday. Now you are a man.’
    I can feel myself inflating with joy. My father, Amalie, even Wilhelm Reich all conspiring
to bring me happiness. Did Dr Reich know that his work would live on in the body
of a young man some day? Was he all-seeing? I can feel the beating heart of his notebook
against my chest, an echo of my own excitement.

A Sport and a Pastime
    by JAMES SALTER
    University. Lecturers in shabby ill-fitting jackets, with hacked-into hair, blinking
like moles as they raced from battered old cars to shiny halls. Students mocking
them in faux vintage chic, the jeans carefully faded and custom torn. Shiny cars.
Cars waxed by employees. Daddies’